RIGA- Latvian President Valdis Zatlers is still wary about Health Minister Eglitis' proposal on how to resolve the "cash gifts" problem
The health minister has had his ministry's secretary to investigate possible breaches and amendments to the code that would prohibit doctors to accept cash gifts from patients, as well as barring patients from giving the gifts.
Zatlers gave his opinion on Latvian radio saying that "prohibiting patients to give cash gifts to doctors and banning doctors from accepting them would be fighting the consequences and not the causes."
He went on to say that the proposition on solving the cash gift issue should be submitted by doctors themselves, so as to ensure maximum cooperation from both parties.
To amend the existent code of administrative breaches was considered as one of the short term solutions from the Health Ministry.
Currently the most popular proposal to solve the problem is to gradually increase doctors' salaries.
The task force also concluded that a long-term solution for the issue would be gradual increase of doctors' salaries.
